The Complete Pogo, for real this time, maybe.

Fantagraphics Books is pleased to announce that it has acquired the rights to publish a comprehensive series comprising Walt Kelly’s classic POGO comic strip. The first volume of Fantagraphics’ POGO will appear in October, 2007, and the series will run approximately 12 volumes.

Now, either they’ve re-acquired those rights, or they’re announcing an acquisition they made over 15 years ago. But, that aside, this is exciting news. Fantagraphics is in much better financial shape than they were the first time they attempted this, so maybe they can pull it off. My main worry now is that Harlan Ellison’s suit against them will scuttle the project before it has a chance.

Jeff Smith (of the fabulous Bone) has been tapped to do the book design, which is very cool, and could draw additional readers who wouldn’t otherwise have been interested.

There’s a Bloom County strip, where Opus is chatting with a bald white overweight older man, I think on a bench and the conversation resolves around the word “Offensesensitivity.” I haven’t found it, but it was a kind of lightbulb recognition moment for me, about people who get their way by being offense sensitive.

On an entirely tangential note, my budding belief in the sainthood of J. Michael Straczynski (auteur Babylon 5) was confirmed when I discovered he is, and has over the years managed to remain, a good friend of Harlan Ellison. YMMV.

Holy Cow, those Pogo books ended up going for just over $300. I kinda think…that I have some sort of ethical issue with that. I mean, that HAS to be going to someone who doesn’t know that they’re being reprinted, right? I can’t imagine someone would spend that much money just because they don’t want to wait for the new volumes to come out.